Thirst

by Tapley, Travis

  Did she just hear him correctly? Did he say “she” had been there since the beginning? Her mind raced though her Sunday school mornings and her Bible roots. Trying to think of the beginning and if that was what he meant, she never recalled an evil being of the female kind. The story of Adam and Eve and sin contained only them and the Devil. Surely the Devil was not a woman. Just as the night he had proven himself to be what he said he was, she was once again in that shock zone of how could this be real. And if it was, everything she had read about creation suddenly took on a whole new twist. She had always believed the men of those times who wrote the books of the Bible to be chauvinistic bastards. She was beginning to wonder if she would ever wake up from this fairy tale dream.

  Chapter 5

  “Beginnings and the real Truth”

  He could see the wheels turning, her mind churning questions, finding answers, only to ask more questions. He knew it might be more than she could process, but he must continue his story. “Yes, when I say the beginning of time, I do mean creation. This creature is the same being that is called the Devil or Satan in your Bible. Look at this world we live in, Summer. Is it not hell enough? We all talk about a heaven and a hell. When my mother drank from him at the cross, it was but a little taste, and yet it transformed her, what it made her, even though she was still a dark creature, was finally at peace. She had found her heaven even though, if one believes the stories written in that book, that heaven is another place. I was once a mortal child, I heard the stories of how one must repent, be born again. When you are mortal, you are taught certain things, each sect or race of humans has their own beliefs, their own religion. If there is to be one way to your heaven and many ways to your hell, then why so many religions to confuse it all?”

  “Are you familiar with Jewish mythology? There is a demon in the writings named Lilith. She is believed to be Adams first wife, she refuses to be under him during sex, and sees herself as his equal and basically gets kicked out of the Garden. She is never spoken of in your text. The Jewish myth is much closer to reality than your version. Lilith is evil incarnate, she is the creator of it, just as a superior being created the earth. Does any of this make sense so far, because there is a lot more to follow?” Summer could neither shake her head up and down for yes, or back and forth for no. What in the world had happened to her life?

  Seeing that she could not answer, he decided to continue, “No one was ever supposed to know the truths I am sharing with you now, and the truths that are about to come. The only reason I know of them is because of what my Caelina did. When she drank and it gave us the ability to walk in the light, it opened up the story in her mind. It gave her the whole vision of what eternity really was. I know you think you know who Satan is. But recall if you will, that your Bible never says that it is a man. It simply says that Satan was a beautiful and powerful fallen angel. What do vampires have? Wings. What do angels have? Wings. What can they both do? Fly.”

  “When Lilith was cast out of heaven, her legions followed her. Those legions are the Dark Council, The Elders. I know I have never spoken of them to you. But those of the moon blood must abide by the rules laid down by them. Even those of us that are of the light still abide by one of those rules. Or try to. We feed at night. Of course, the dark ones have no choice. But they cannot feed at just any time after dusk. It must be done after midnight when the streets become quiet. The Council prefers the weak, the homeless, the less fortunate. The world really never misses them anyway. I know this goes against what you believe as truth, and what you perceived to be truth in vampire lore. Some of it is truth, but most is not. So, now you have a simple understanding of Lilith. But I can see by the look in your eyes, you are confused and curious about the rest of this heaven and hell tale.”

  “What is your God supposed to be? Does it not say, and I will say he here for the sake of what you believe., that he is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end? Once again, what lives forever and is immortal? Am I saying your god is a vampire, the creator of the universe, the heavens and the earth? How and why? Who knows, it is one of the great mysteries, but is it really much different than what you have grown up believing? We all have believed in fairy tales at one point. Does it not make sense? When the mortal man and woman was created, how long were they supposed to live? We assume they were never supposed to die, because even after Lilith had been cast out of the Garden and tricked the woman Eve, men still lived to be nine hundred years old.”

  “Go back and read if you must your Old Testament. Lilith had spread her seed, the earth had became corrupt, evil. So your God tried to destroy it. The man Noah and his family were the only pure creatures left. And you know the rest of that story. Everything was wiped out except what was on that boat. This could be a very long story, but think about this, throughout time, men, mortal men have tried their best to compute in their sophisticated minds how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. Does the word vampire make sense on how now? I told you, or mentioned that hell is here, hell is this planet we live on, and hell is really a place where ever Lilith resides. Is there a heaven then? Heaven existed in two forms really in the beginning. The Garden was a heaven, and the place where your God lived was a heaven. They were to always remain separate. This almighty, this God, vampire, creator of all was not a dark creature just as your texts teach you. It lived off of the blood of the angels in the above heavens. But it was not the twisted killing blood drinking that Lilith has brought to the earth. All survived, nothing ever died, they drank from each other in pleasure and the supply was always replenished. It was what made it heaven, it was like a blood drinking orgasm.”

  “In all the things I have told you about Lilith, she was once one of those beautiful blood drinkers and of course you know this by what she is. As she has always done, she rebelled, and in her rebellion, destroyed the heaven that was always supposed to exist here on earth. Except you humans were to never know the taste of blood. You were just to live and eat of the land and be another creation to have a fellowship with the creator. Instead of blood drinking, you were given the pleasure of sex. This planet was never supposed to be occupied by blood drinkers. And as always, Lilith in her immaculate evil, changed it all.”

  “I know this started out as a story about the swords, and a couple of other things I wanted to share, and I haven’t even touched on Lilith’s mate, Michael. He was the first. The very first dark one. The first creation of earthly blood sucker by Mortis, a member of the dark council. Since none of the fallen heavenly vampires can have children, Mortis decided to give a mortal eternal life, a young soul to call his own, his child, his son. He is strong, but lives only because she allows him too. The Dark Council is Lilith’s equal, but a mortal turned bloodsucker is not.”

  “Maybe I have waited too late to tell you these things. I know it is hard to fathom. I have turned your whole view of creation, heaven and hell, and all things in between upside down. But you had to know, and I could have waited and let you read the writings of my mother after I had bitten you. I did not want you to find out like that, I wanted you to have the chance to leave, walk out the door and forget about me and what I am. I feel in some ways I have lived such a lie with you. So much more, so many more things you do not know. And when I tell you the remainder of the story about the swords, you may very well change your mind and walk out the door. If that is the path you choose, then I wish you to take the children and raise them as mortals. I do not wish this to be bestowed upon them without you by my side.”

  It was all sinking in slowly, like a wet batch of concrete being poured in a form. Except her form had just been bent out of shape. It seemed it was going to be unable to hold all of the cement and it would spill over the edges and harden, freezing her in this unbelieving story. She was thinking faster than she could hash the information, it was back and forth, back and forth. Heaven, hell, God, the Bible, creation, Satan, Lilith was Satan, vampires in heaven, angels, wings. Yet somehow she knew it all to be true, to be very real. I
t was somehow all very believable to her. If, like Seneca had said, one could believe in the religions of the world, what made this story any different? What else could he possibly tell her that could blow her mind anymore than it already had?

  “There is one thing you really need to know about me. My mother’s death is something that haunts me because I was not there, I do not know if I could have prevented it. As important as it is though, there is something you need to know even more. I have created others. I have bestowed the gift upon them. There are many here in New Orleans. But there is one like my mother who is gone now. Her name was Amaranth. She was strong willed, smart and always ready for battle. She stood by my side for 300 years. We fought back to back many nights against Lilith and Michael. Not only them, but many others of the dark side. She was ruthless with her blade, she combined vampire speed with many years of private training at the hands of her father a medieval knight. Her father had spend countless days in their garden teaching her the positions, the spins, the stances of his warriors. Although she could never go into battle as a woman, she could fend for his home if ever attacked and he was away. She had been twenty three when I came into her life. She did not get the option of learning about me and who I was before the bite. I had thought about a courtship and asking for her hand in marriage, but she did not seem as enthralled with me as I her, so I decided to give her the gift and suffer the outrage later. And outrage there was.”

  “Her father never knew what became of her. She could never approve going back to her home and seeing him and watching him grow old while she remained as his baby, his young never aging daughter. We left and came to the America’s. She never even knew of his death, how he died, nor where he was buried. She left behind and forgot all traces of her mortal life. She remained bitter at me for many years. I had reasoned with her to be glad I did not decide to drink and take her life. That I decided to make her a wonderful creation. If she had been bitten and transformed by one of the dark, she would have never seen the light of day again and would be brutal in how she killed and with no compassion in her bones anywhere. It was not like any of us have much, but we do contain something of a light inside.”

  “I cannot lie to you and say she was not beautiful. Her hair was long and black, her eyes as blue as a broken heart. She wore the vampire leather well and was a sight to behold with her sword strapped to her side. After her initial anger toward me had subsided, she came to love the radiant life. We would train together and she often times got the better of me in skirmishes. She had been trained well and was quite the operator of sword. We fell in love and became mates for life. It was any wonder I had not lost my life in battles because I would become so entranced by the ease in which she defeated enemies, I would get myself in a jam. Yes, I’m not ashamed to say, she saved my hide many times.”

  This was the one part of his life she had often wondered about but never asked. She always felt if he had a desire to tell her then he would. She had thought she did not care if he had ever had another, but this was bothering her more than she liked to admit. She could see the enchantment in his eyes as he talked of her. Hell, she could feel the love he had for her in her heart. She once again felt torn. She wanted to be angry, but for what? The anger stemmed more from the fact he had never told her. But if he had never told her there had to be a reason deeper than love.

  “I was heartbroken when she was beheaded and the sword of Lilith driven through her heart. I watched helplessly. It is a scene that has remained in my mind for two hundred years. Can you even imagine that length of time to replay that day over and over and over? I had vowed to never take another love, to never create another. To live my life as a nomad. I did not want the responsibility of losing something that was of my making again. Then you came along. I had thought about once again just biting you and giving you the gift. But I could not do it. If it was to be this time, I wanted the chance to see where our paths led us and then tell you and let you make the decision. You made the choice of telling you very easy. Your love of the vampire, although somewhat distorted, peaked my interest in you. I would secretly get a chuckle some nights as you told me things of the undead. I loved and hated your desire to be immortal. It was easy to decide to tell you who I was, but hard to think about making you one of us and then losing you too. But I need you, I need your strength. But I also want the choice to be yours and not have me rob you of a life you can have. You can walk away and never be known by Lilith. If you choose to join me, I risk it all and so do you. There are no guarantees. She will not stop until she has what she wants from me. And the problem is, I have no idea how to stop her or destroy her.”

  Chapter 6

  “Double Messiah’s”

  Summer sat in silence on the couch. He had told so much, yet said very little about the sword. It was apparent it was Amaranth’s. She felt pretty sure should she make the choice to join him, it would become hers. Is this what she wanted? She had dreamed from an early teens to be a vampire. To be able to live forever. Now that she had the chance and what she had been so sure of with Seneca, suddenly seemed unknown to her. She had always felt the only thing she had to fear from immortality was being found out and a stake driven through her heart. She never dreamed it would tie into her beliefs and she would learn a secret that only the radiant ones shared. He had chosen to tell her before the bite. To share with her and trust her to uphold and honor the secret no matter what path she picked. If she walked away, how could she betray that trust to him? If she stayed, how could she ever be what Amaranth had been to him? Had she ever been that to him? She did not want to be a replacement being, be it mortal or not. But how could she ever be anything more now that she knew the truth?

  She could walk away and leave it all, but it still did not change the fact there were two children to consider in her decision. She reasoned with herself that they were safe as long as they were mortals. It had all seemed so romantic to her. It became even more romantic once she knew he was a vampire. Although a totally different one. She had often thought what would her friends say if they knew the truth about Seneca. Who was she kidding?

  They would laugh her into oblivion. She had always been of the loner variety and did not make friends easily. It was not like she was some kind of freak, she was a strong beautiful woman, bur even strong women have their weaknesses inside. He had told her that he had only been back in New Orleans a short time the night she met him. Explained to her that he had to leave the city he loved behind about every ten years and head to a different location. Then in such a sad statement to her, had told her that after sixty or seventy years he would come back. It gave the mortals he had known time to pass away, and make who he was in his portrayal of a mortal unknown. This was another thing that made the life of a vampire and immortality sad, but even in the sadness of it, made her believe in somewhat of a morbid, and almost selfish ideal. Better those around her die than herself. It all caused good and bad to bounce around in her head. It made her think of a mortal life, and if you really thought about it, you were always going to watch somebody die. She had seen couples lose mates after fifty years and the one left behind fall apart and die two months later. She needed time to think, to sort it all out.

  In the world of the dark ones, Michael had always wondered about his usefulness to Lilith. He had been on this chase with her forever. And that was almost a literal thought. He was tall, handsome and proud of his position within the Council. He wore the title King with vampire pride. He was strong and when there were problems within the dark kingdom, he was seldom questioned. Whatever he said was law. He had made Mortis proud. No one wanted to be ripped apart by Michael. But they all knew, even the Council that no matter the hierarchy of rule, Lilith was the ultimate ruler, leader of the pack. Even though she should have fallen under the complete rule of Michael as his Queen, she would never bow to any man, and be damned any that tried to change that. He was smart enough to not question her when she wanted something, but to just go along with it and survive. If there wa
s one thing they could agree upon, it was the hatred of the radiant ones, and especially Seneca. He must be destroyed. It was no secret that he was the ultimate of their kind. The oldest, wisest and full of strength. But, had they not been trying to rid this planet of him for two thousand years, and so far no one had won.

  He was sure Seneca wanted Lilith dead more than him. Hell, who or what didn’t want her dead. He wasn’t even sure she was kill-able! No one knew of her or the Council’s origins. It was never asked and never told. It was their age and wisdom and matter of fact rule that led all others to never dream of asking for fear of being destroyed. They had always been there. Did not matter the age of the vampire, they preexisted it. He knew Lilith was older than him by many years, but he found it odd that if she was a true creature of the dark, as in having been bitten, where did her roots lie? Did she even know how she began? He knew one thing, he was never about to ask her. It was his job to act as King and do Mortis’ bidding, and if that meant playing by her rules he shall.